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Chapter 5

At The Train Station

A new train dream tonight. I've bought a ticket at the central station. I'm on my way home. The man who sells me the ticket tries to be nice in a bothersome kind of way – when he gives the ticket to me he smiles ingratiating as he says: "It's subway nr 7". I don't know what he means by that, the only thing I'm interested in is to know from which platform the train departs. But I don't ask him about it, or comment on the nonsense about the subway number (what has that got to do with anything?). I just smile hastily at him and then pace towards the door leading to the tracks from which my homebound train usually departs.
          I've been here hundreds of times before so I know my way. I look up to check the board for info about the platform and track number for my train. But the board isn't there. As I look around I realise they've rebuilt the whole station. There are no information boards anywhere. In the dream I know the reason for this is that they've decided information boards should no longer be considered cool, according to the new trends in architecture, and because of this they've decided that that kind of information is no longer necessary. This annoys me quite a bit but I don't have time to get upset about it. I walk towards the railway tracks thinking that I can check the info-signs next to every platform's entrance to find my train. I know this can take some time, especially if my train isn't among the first 40 something entrances, but at least I will soon be on my way home.
          Turns out though they've removed those signposts too. And, there's only one platform and three tracks here – there should be at least sixty. They've restored, rebuilt, and renewed everything in here as well, everything is shiningly newly-made, everything is just soooo hot and trendy. I'm starting to feel really frustrated with all of this, I just want to find my train and get home. I'm thinking through my situation quickly and decide to go back to the man who sold me the ticket and ask him which platform my train will depart from. I'm a bit of a hurry by now, so when I get there I just ask him straight on where I can find it. He looks at me as if I'm some kind of Neanderthal or something but he just says: "It's platform nr 14, you'll find it if you take the stairs down this hall and to the left."
          I dart away and after having looked for the stairs for a while – I thought it would be a big stairway since almost all trains departure from wherever the stairs lead – I finally find it behind an anonymous little door. I climb up the stairs, several stories, and then I'm on a floor with yet another flight of stairs leading to the top floor of the building, but this one is so small I'm thinking it can't be the staircase leading to all the tracks, it looks like it's made only for maintenance people to get up to the attic. I say this to the person who is with me (up until now I didn't know I had anyone with me) but she says: "No, this is the final stair – look, there's a sign!" and she points to a very small marker saying ‘to the tracks’. By now I've worked up a really good mad, and I'm thinking to myself: "Don't they want people to find their trains?? This is a bloody train station for crying out loud, people's main interest here lies in getting to their trains in time, right?!"
          I want to shout this to everyone responsible for and playing along with the re-construction of this station building. But I must hurry now so I just mount the narrow stairway and finally we're in a big station hall with lots of tracks and platforms. This hall is also a new building, constructed in consistency with the concept of the other ones. The main problem with this one is that you can't get to the different platforms unless you jump over the tracks. And that's forbidden, and, besides, it's extremely dangerous. I know the idea behind not doing passages connecting the platforms with each other is that they've found it passé and hence unnecessary – in line with the new architecture trend. Knowing this makes me furious. I just want to find my fucking train and get the hell out of here. I take a deep breath, look for trains that have already arrived, because my train will departure in three minutes so it should've arrived by now. I jump across the tracks looking desperately for the right one.
          But it isn't there. I begin to feel some panic now, I have to find my train like immediately, and since I can't find it I run down the stairs again to ask the ticket salesman – again – where I can find my train. He gives me a glance as if I'm utterly and completely mad and says with a self-righteous voice: "Well, it's right there", pointing towards the hall I went to before, "I told you it was subway nr 7". As if that should explain anything!! I want to say something really demeaning to him, but I don't have the time to say anything, I run to the hall as fast as I can but I know it's already too late, the train left five minutes ago. I'm stuck here. And I wake up, with an intense feeling of wanting to kill someone. 5.55 am.